


All the Hidden Things

by glasshibou



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 04:23:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15331662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasshibou/pseuds/glasshibou
Summary: Time heals most wounds, but not for Sarah. Thirteen years after she saved herself and Toby the first time, she finds her brother in a new sort of danger. (Sequel to The Castle in the Woods; loose retelling of Koschei the Deathless)





	1. Chapter 1

From the moment she stepped over her father and stepmother’s corpses, her memory was a hazy, evanescent thing. She remembered peeling off her gown, filling bags with the pearls and gems from it. She remembered soothing Toby, whose eye was still swollen. She remembered searching for anything edible in the house, and then anything valuable.

The problem was that she couldn’t remember what order everything went in, or how many days she stayed in the cottage--not that she cared to. It could have been three days, but it just as easily could have been three hours. She didn’t speak the whole time, aside from shushing Toby. And when the smell of a fire reached her nose, she burned dried lavender in her own brazier to try and drown out the smell.

When she left the home of her childhood, it was with her baby brother, a queen’s ransom, and a shattered psyche. A cat and a dog followed where she went; the toad hopped off into the forest at some point. Sarah didn’t remember when. 

It hurt when she tried to.

She wandered from town to town with Toby, exchanging a pearl here, a sliver of her silver headdress there. All through them she heard whispers of an evil warlock who had cast spells over the townsfolk. And not long after those whispers would come the ones asking where he went, hopeful that he’d never come back. Sarah kept her eyes to the ground and her lips pressed shut.

There were some, she could tell, who wanted to chide the young girl with a babe on her hip, so clearly running from something. She heard  _ those _ whispers too, and paid them no mind. They tended to stop when they saw the touch of magic shimmering in Toby’s eyes, and the haunted look in her own.

She let them draw their own conclusions, and didn’t mind the quiet pity they’d take on her or when they helped her slip away in the dead of the night.

Town after town melded together until she wasn’t quite sure where she’d come from or where she’d go. Sarah only recognized that they were very, very far from the forest where the castle once stood--or at least, far enough that she started to feel comfortable. One day, not long after that, she came to the sudden realization that Toby had aged. He was walking by himself and talking passably, and mercy upon mercies, he did not seem to remember the castle. He loved Agnes the cat and Ambrosias the dog, but could not remember when Agnes held him in her arms, or Ambrosias carried a rider.

It was probably for the best. 

Sarah reached into her riches and bought a small plot of land with a small, abandoned home on it. The previous tenant’s family had been driven out after he died in the war, and Sarah tried not to think of all the ghosts that could live in the walls. She tried asking where they went, but her new neighbors told her not to pry--it was better not to know.

When the first soldiers started coming back from the front, Sarah saw herself in their trauma. She knew what it was like to get swallowed up by a memory so real she had to fight her way out. She knew the dreams that could stalk the nighttime.

Her empathetic ear earned her three proposals. The first was to a man fifteen years her senior, and while she suspected his offer was mostly from pity--the people in the village still thought her a tragically unwed mother because of the war, one way or another--it still made her feel ill. She turned him down as kindly as possible, and then did not leave her home for a week, too enshrouded in memories to be amongst others.

The second came from a soldier, freshly returned. He recognized the look in her eyes, and when he talked of the terrors he had witnessed, she did not shy away. She had her own, of course, even if she would not share them. He offered her what he thought was comfort and security, but she thought different. It wasn't that she particularly disliked him, either; he was someone she considered a friend. She told him this, and that she could not marry someone she did not love. She left out that she was no longer sure she  _ could _ love, not in any way a husband would want.

The third, and final proposal, Sarah actually considered for a time. This one, too, came from a soldier making their way home. They joined the army as a man, and lived as a man, but confided in Sarah before she went to dress the soldier's wounds that they had not been born a man. Sarah understood secrets that cut to the very core of a person. She had her own, after all.

And if it hadn't been for the fact that she thought only so many secrets could live under one roof, she might have accepted. Hanne left after they recovered, and Sarah was sad, in her way, to see them go. Perhaps she could have been content with Hanne, but they were gone. Sarah dwelled enough in the past as it was, and would not allow herself to wonder what might have been.

For a time, the trickle of wounded slowed, and news from the war front came almost to a halt. It felt as if the entire country was holding its breath, waiting to see if the tenuous peace would last. Sarah waited as well, nervous for the day Toby grew old enough to be conscripted.

For a time, things were good.

And then they got worse.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t that Sarah wasn’t tired. She was. In fact, she was  _ exhausted _ , but she couldn’t let herself sleep until she’d seen the blacksmith. She had to be the first to see him, so that she could be the first to ask him to take a boy on as an apprentice. But in order to make sure that she was the first to ask, it meant camping outside of the smithy in the early hours of the morning until he arrived.

And so there she was, leaning against the rough stone wall, trying not to let herself blink for too long in case she fell asleep. She had practice ub staying awake, of course; when Toby was still very young, she sometimes kept herself up for days at a time, nervous energy refusing to relinquish her. Her nerves eased with distance and time, but never passed completely. It had been a long time since she fought sleep so fiercely, but Hanne had written her a fortnight ago, and what Hanne had to say put Sarah ill at ease.

_ Find Toby a valuable apprenticeship _ , Hanne’s latter said.  _ They are sending out men to round up any boy old enough to hold a poleaxe. Keep him safe. _

Sarah intended to.

Hanne’s word was good; not long after they parted ways, Hanne was promoted to Lieutenant, which was a point of some pride. Even Hanne, however, said that the war with their northern neighbors had gone on for far too long, had claimed too many lives.

Sarah yawned and rearranged herself against the wall, tucking the letter into her skirts. The dawn light was too weak to read it again, anyway.

“Karl,” she called out crossly to the man making his way to the smithy. “Finally. You are late.” He usually was up before the sun rose so that he could stoke the flames and prepare his forge for the day. Today, the sun beat him, if only just barely.

“The babe kept me up late. Colicky. Have anything in your bag of tricks, Sarah?” He eyed her as he unlocked his door.

“Maybe,” Sarah said, worrying the inside of her lip with her teeth. “I need you to take on an apprentice,” she said, deciding on a direct approach. “More specifically, I need you to take Toby on as your apprentice.”

Kare scoffed, and in the shadows, Sarah scowled. 

“I assure you that I am entirely serious,” she said, frustration creeping into her voice.

“No,” protested Karl. “Don’t make me laugh. The boy is too delicate; you coddle him too much.”

“Even so.” Sarah straightened her spine, trying to make herself taller against Karl’s imposing height. “I’m sure you will coddle your daughter, now that she is here. May I remind you, Karl, that the only reason you have both daughter and wife is because of me? You owe me. Take on Toby.”

It was harsh. Manipulative, even, and Sarah was not proud to remind him that he had almost lost both wife and daughter in one evening. She was also not one to frequently call upon the favors her various neighbors owed her, but desperate times called for despicable measures.

Karl breathed out sharply.

“Too right,” he said, sounding chastened. “Send him over with something for Heidi later this morning, and I’ll get him started.”

Sarah almost slumped against the wall in relief. Toby would be safe; nobody would take him away from his apprenticeship as a blacksmith--the people making the weapons and armor for soldiers were always far too important to lose. It finally seemed that Sarah’s luck was looking up again. 

In the distance an owl called out, and Sarah flinched at the sudden noise, her nerves still raw. 

“I’ll send him over with enough fennel to last you a year,” she said. “Thank you, Karl.”

The way back to her little cottage--in which Toby was still safe and asleep, and would be for an hour or two yet--took her right by the forest. The first few years she lived there she’d refused to let Toby get anywhere near it, and she avoided looking at it herself. Her father, when she was very little, used to tell her that all forests were connected somehow, and she feared that was true. She feared that tucked somewhere between the gnarled trunks was the body of the man she’d poisoned and left to burn.

_ Murderess _ , the little seditious part of her thought whenever she looked too long into the forest.  _ You killed a man. Your friends would hang you if they knew _ . 

Sarah averted her eyes and looked down at her feet. 

Half hidden under the sole of her shoe was a gleaming white feather, somehow managing to cast light in the early dawn gloom. It was weak and pale, but abnormal all the same, even for its deficiencies. Sarah wanted nothing to do with magic; she picked her foot up and nudged the feather away, closer to the forest. She ignored how several meters away was another, as if something were laying a trail for some unwitting traveller to follow.

_ Nothing good comes from magic _ , she reminded herself, suppressing a shudder. Sarah turned her back on the beckoning forest and walked closer to the horizon, where her home and Toby were both waiting. She paid no more mind to the glimmering feather, choosing instead to focus on the fact that Hanne’s letter came in time, that Toby was safe and secure in his brand new apprenticeship. 

She pulled down the dried fennel that she’d cultivated the year before, and scribbled out instructions to make it into a tea for Heidi to drink. If that didn’t help Heidi’s baby, then time would, and no matter how much she claimed otherwise, the couple would give her credit all the same. 

Although once or twice someone had asked her to use her herblore to harm someone, she never did. It was more than possible, but the thought made her feel sick. The fennel, at least, looked nothing like the henbane she’d used to…

Sarah’s hands stilled in their task. It wouldn’t do to have her thoughts clouded all day; Toby would know that something was wrong. He’d ask about it, and Sarah would have to tell him half-truths about why him being in any sort of remote danger made her nervous and jumpy.

The sleep she didn’t have that night tugged at her eyelids, and it was with relief that she heard Toby rise and begin his day.

“You’d best get a move on,” she shouted in his general direction. “You have things to do today, and none of them involve lounging around!”

Not that he was given to idleness anyway. For all that Karl claimed that she coddled him--and for all that it was the truth--her brother still had a strong work ethic. Still it wouldn’t be good for him to show up to his new apprenticeship late.

“Take this over to Karl and Heidi,” she directed, handing the bundles of dried fennel over to him. “You’ve got an apprenticeship, and Karl doesn’t want you to be late.”

Excitement and worry vied for dominance in his expression.

“That will take up a lot of time,” he pointed out. “Who is going to help you with the land?”

They’d just put in an expansive garden--perhaps something more along the lines of a very small farm, actually--and his point was valid. Still, Sarah shook her head at him. 

“Don’t worry about that. The apprenticeship is more important, and I know you don’t like tilling the garden anyway. Collect some of your things and then go over to the smithy. I’m sure Karl already has some things lined up for you to do.”

Toby still frowned a little, but he nodded his head and took the fennel anyway. He pretended not to notice that the tea Sarah mixed for herself was one meant to fend off dreams, gave her a small, one-armed hug, and told her that he would see her later. Sarah hugged him back and told him that she would stop by later with something for him and Karl to eat, but what she really meant was that she wanted to check up on him. 

Whether he knew that or not, he gave her one final nod before walking out the door.

Sarah sat down heavily in the wooden chair at the table, taking a sip of her bitter drink. It still made her pull a face, even if she was accustomed to the taste. Still, it would allow her at least a few hours of restful sleep, and for that she couldn’t be more grateful. 

She let herself curl up in bed, tea drained, and dreamed of nothing. 

When she woke it was late afternoon, and for a moment she wondered why should couldn’t hear Toby puttering around. The early morning felt like it had been years ago, and Sarah stretched in her bed, rubbing where she slept awkwardly on her neck. Like any change, having Toby gone during the day would take some getting used to. 

Sarah stood and freshened herself up, packing something easy to take to Karl and Toby to eat. The walk back to the blacksmith’s was cool and oddly quiet. Sarah lived at the edge of the village’s hubbub, and so there was rarely any noise made by too many people, but there should still have been birdsong or bugs humming. Early autumn should have been noisier, as the smaller creatures spent the last few weeks of warmth preparing for the oncoming winter. 

But…

Sarah paused, shifting her basket to her other hand. Nothing. She thought that maybe if she tried to, she might be able to hear her own heartbeat. The forest being silent had never brought good tidings.

She picked up her pace, almost jogging to make it to Karl’s before she could come up with any awful answer for the quiet.

Karl was alone at the open forge, which did not worry Sarah until he looked up and seemed surprised to see her. 

“Thank you for the fennel,” he said cautiously, as if he was waiting for an angry tongue lashing. Sarah glanced around the forge, her brows furrowed.

“Where is Toby?” she asked, holding out the basket for Karl to take. The blacksmith put his tools down and brushed off his hands, but some of the ash remained.

“That’s the thing; I thought he was with you,” Karl said slowly, not looking her in the eye. “A man stopped by and asked to speak with him. I just assumed… The man had a strange eye,” Karl said, as if that would explain everything. “Not that  _ Toby _ has a strange eye, of course,” Karl was quick to add, noticing how Sarah’s face drained of color and misinterpreting. 

“They just looked so similar, and I thought that perhaps they had both gone home to you. And with the boy’s father being a mystery, I assumed… Sarah, are you okay?”

Sarah was not okay. Her fingers felt numb, and she basket full of food dropped from her grasp and bounced against the ground, spilling some of its contents. There was only one man she knew of with strange eyes like Toby’s. He happened to be the same man who  _ gave _ Toby his swollen iris.

The same one she’d left poisoned and dying in a burning room.

“No,” she croaked. “No, no.” Tears pricked in her eyes, which only made her angry. She didn’t want to be angry at Karl--he hadn’t known any better, and hadn’t she thought herself so clever in keeping her secret?--and she couldn’t be angry with Toby, who was just as ignorant. That left herself to direct all of her bitter grief at.

“Don’t touch me,” she ground out, teeth clenched, when Karl reached out to steady her. It was only then that she noticed she was swaying slightly. “I’m sorry,” she added, reminding herself that she could not be angry with her friend. “I just… Please, do not touch me right now.” The thought of any man touching her at the moment--even a dear friend--was enough to make her shudder.

“Sarah,” Karl said slowly, speaking as if he might to a spooked horse. “Who is this man? Did he hurt you? Did he…” The question dropped off into the air, as if Karl was too afraid of reminding her of what he thought was her shame. 

“Yes,” she whispered. “He hurt me. He…” She swallowed hard, but it felt like her throat was filled with cinders. “He can’t have Toby.”

“He won’t,” Karl said, still trying to soothe her. His eyes were wide and he held his hands at a distance, clearly struggling with not being able to at least hug her. “Me and some of the other men will hunt him down and get Toby back for you, I promise.”

Sarah inhaled sharply, visions of her murdered parents swimming in her memories.

“No,” she told him sharply. “No, you can’t. You’ll only get hurt. All of you. Don’t.” Any words she might have used to explain the situation to him withered and died on her tongue, leaving her with her clipped orders. She backed a few paces away from Karl, as if her bad luck were a miasma he might get caught in. 

“This is something I have to do myself.”

Before Karl could attempt to detain her any further, Sarah dashed away and towards the very place she never wished to enter again.

The forest.


	3. Chapter 3

The trail of feathers took her deeper and deeper into the forest, further than she’d even dared to dream of going. The trees grew closer and close together, the underbrush thicker, until sunlight was barely able to filter down to her. The gloom swallowed everything but the feathers, which grew brighter--bright enough to make a path.

_ Little mouse _ , she thought she heard someone call, but it had to have been the leaves rustling. There was nobody nearby, but her skin erupted with goosebumps all the same.

Sarah picked up one of the feathers and ran her fingers against its soft edge. It was strangely cool, as if it had been stored, somehow, with ice. She let it slip through her fingers and brushed them off on her thighs, as if the magic might bite her. It wouldn’t be the first time something magical harmed her, and she doubted it would be the last, or anywhere near the last. Sarah grimaced and pushed a smell branch out of her way, letting it swing back behind her.

Every step forward seemed to make it grow darker and darker, but, she supposed, that  _ was _ why they called it the Black Forest…

She paused, trying to get her bearings, and that was when he made himself known.

“Hello, Sarah,” he said, dragging a gloved finger from her right shoulder, across the back of her neck, and off her left shoulder. She’d known he would appear sooner or later. Some part of her even knew that he had to be somewhere nearby. Still, he heart thundered in her chest and she flinched at his touch. Seeing him--to have visible proof that she tried to burn a man alive--should have been worse, she was sure of it. Burns like that, like what he had to have suffered, rarely healed well. Knowing this, Sarah steeled herself  so that she would not cower when she had to meet his eyes. She clenched her fists, preparing for the worse, and came face to face with--

\--Unblemished, unscarred skin.

he didn’t even look like he’s aged. In his hand--the hand that hadn’t  _ touched her _ she thought with a shudder--he held a bird, the source of the glowing feathers. It sat, unmoving and defeated, as he stroked it from head to tattered tail.

“It is rude to ignore a greeting, Sarah,” he said, clicking his tongue in mock disappointment. She tore her eyes from his face and looked again at the bird. Was it even breathing? She couldn’t tell. The poor thing was missing feathers, as was to be expected, and bleeding where they had been torn out less-than-gently. As Sarah watched, his fingers twisted around a stiff flight feather, and with a quick jerk of his wrist, he tore it from the bird’s flesh.

The bird still did not move, and the image made Sarah’s bottom lip quiver. When he pulled out another feather with a violent twist, she looked away, into the foliage behind his right shoulder.

Sarah stared ahead of her, refusing the blink, as he took two paces towards her.  _ He isn’t here, he isn’t here, he isn’t here _ , she told herself as he grabbed her wrist and held her hand out flat, palm up. She tried not to feel the warm, slowly oozing blood of the bird as he placed in her hands, a macabre gift.

A tear leaked out and she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at him or the dying bird.

Jareth, unseen to her, grinned and slipped one of the bird’s flight feathers into her hair, behind  an ear.

“Not quite what you were expecting to see, am I little mouse? I think not.”

Sarah opened her eyes in time to see his grin strengthen, teeth bared and menacing and so, so sharp. She worked hard to keep her face carefully blank, save for the tear sliding down her cheek.

“Where is Toby?” she asked. He clicked his tongue again and tilted his head to the side.

“No, no. I have been planning our reunion for far too long, Sarah. I will not let you spoil it.”

She tensed when he used her name--her real name--and he broke into another smile before continuing.

“I will admit that I was… indisposed for quite a long time. Your little trick with the henbane certainly was clever, but not your own idea, I think. Now, the fire…” his eyes gleamed. “My, my. That  _ was _ inspired! I feel no shame in admitting that  _ that _ took me quite a long time to come back from. After all, it is just the two of us here, in so cosy and intimate an environment. And because we are so  _ close _ , I will assuage your curiosity and ruin any treacherous plans you might be plotting at the moment.”

Sarah scowled at him, which he only seemed to find amusing.

“You did not kill me, Sarah, because my death is hidden far, far away. Somewhere you would never think to retrieve it. You didn’t really think I would leave such a pesky thing so close at hand, did you?” He winked at her conspiratorially.

Sarah swallowed, and then remembered she had to at least act brave.

“I don’t care,” she bit out. “Tell me what you've done with Toby.”

“As single-minded as ever, dearest. Tell me: what say you to a game?” He smiled at her, a galling expression that made her wish she was brave enough to strike him.

“I-”

“Want Toby back. Yes, yes, I am aware, but  _ do _ try to keep up. He is your prize, after all.” He half chuckled when she looked at him sharply. “I see I have your full attention now,” he drawled out.

“And if I lose?” Sarah asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

“I get to keep you, of course. As I would have, were it not for your stubbornness. But I realized something then, burning on my bedroom floor; something kept must  _ know _ it is kept, which you refused to accept. I anticipate that this game will make the transition… easier.”

Sarah’s stomach turned at the thought of being something he considered his, and held the bird up to her chest to hide her shaking hands. Whatever the game was, he would not play fair. That was certain. if she decided against playing, she might be safe… for a time. Until he next got bored, perhaps. But that would forfeit Toby, which was unacceptable.

“And is that why you aren’t forcing me to go with you right now? You know my name,” she pointed out. “I would hate you either way.”

A mock expression of hurt travelled across his face, and Sarah had to resist the urge to snort at his theatrics.

“I am a generous man, Sarah. How you have yet to see that is beyond me, but I have no doubt that you will in time. You need only to say the words.”

Sarah licked her lips, frowned, and then sighed.

“What are the terms?”

He smiled again, but there was no kindness to be found in his face.

“Simple enough, Sarah,” he told her. “Find my death. I will release Toby to you when you hold it in your hands. If you so choose at that time, you may leave and have my blessings to live your… mortal life.” He spat out the last words like they were a curse, but they sounded like a blessing to Sarah.

But it sounded like a trap; there was no way he would allow her to discover his death. Not when she would surely finish the job this time. While she hadn’t relished the idea of being a murderer, she’d already grieved her innocence. And to find out now that she had wasted all of those years?

“It seem to great a risk for you to take. Why allow me the chance to harm you? Again?” She made her last word pointed. Sharp. Hoping he’d remember what it felt like to feel his flesh cook while poison swirled through his veins.

His smile dimmed, his lips pulled further back from his teeth, and in their too-sharp tips she saw her own demise. Oh, he probably wouldn’t kill her. In fact, it was likely he would keep her alive for as long as possible. A shudder ran down her spine at the thought that he might steal away her  _ own _ death and trap her with him. Forever.

“It is not so great a risk as you think, dear Sarah. Least of all where you are concerned. Now. Shall we play my game?”

She knew that she would have to say yes. Whatever happened to her, she could not leave her brother in the clutches of so vile a man. She knew it just as she knew that he would cheat, somehow, if he wasn’t already.

Wishing that she’d never stumbled upon the castle--as she had done innumerable times over the years--Sarah nodded her head.

“Say it. I need you to say it.”

“You  _ want _ me to say it. You don’t  _ need _ me to do anything; you don’t know the difference,” Sarah said with a scowl. When he moved toward her, a snarl on his face, Sarah held the bird closer to her chest to shield it. She’d provoked him, as she knew she would his her words; still, there was no reason to let the poor thing get hurt in the crossfire. It had been through enough abuse.

“You have no idea,” he hissed face so close to hers that she felt his warm breath ghost across her cheeks, “what it is that I want or need. Just as you have no idea of the lengths I will go to obtain it.”

Sarah tried to keep her face carefully neutral, even as he swiped a thumb over her left cheek. Still, she refused to break eye contact with him. He already knew she was afraid; Sarah refused to let him know just how terrified she really was. Time might have passed, but her stubborn streak hadn't.

As if deprived of the reaction he'd been hoping for (which, Sarah thought, was not likely that far from the truth) he let go of her face and straightened himself. Riding the swell of confidence from her modest victory, she was pleased to notice that he was no longer  _ that  _ much taller than her.

“I believe this conversation is over,” he said, ignoring the faint smile on Sarah’s lips if he noticed it at all. “You will need it, so I bid you good luck on your quest.”

He grew faint around his edges, the way he always did in her nightmares. And there was his sharp grin again; Sarah curled her hands into fists, resisting the urge to strike him.

“Wait!” Sarah commanded, furrowing her brows. “This isn’t fair!”

He cut her off before she could continue. “Fair, dearest Sarah? You ask for fairness, you ask for generosity… Very well. I _ am _ feeling rather generous today. Relay to me your desire.”

She brushed off the way her purred his last word, the way his eyes glittered, the slimy feeling she got when she looked at him. There would be plenty of time later to humiliate him as he’d humiliated her, when she held power over his death. And she intended to do all the damage she could, this time; she’d make sure he couldn’t possibly come back.

“I won’t stand a chance if you don’t at least give me a  _ hint _ as to where to start looking for your death. Or…” she shouldn’t ask, but couldn’t help herself. “Show me Toby. I need to see Toby.”

Jareth threw his head back and laughed, and Sarah was hit with the sinking, sick feeling that she had made the wrong choice.

“Oh, bravo, Sarah,” he said, pinching the fingers of his right hand together. Sarah watched in despair as a fist-sized crystal appeared at his fingertips. Jareth was laughing at her--he had to be. She could think of no other reason for his sudden mirth.

She was doomed.

He tossed the crystal orb at her, and Sarah had to shift the broken bird into her left hand so she could catch the orb in her right. The crystal almost bounced off her fingertips, but she managed to catch it. She clutched it to her chest, feeling her heart hammer with the sudden panic that almost dropping it had brought on.

“Until next time,” he said, and winked out of sight. Sarah stared wide-eyes, at the place where he stood moments before. He was gone. She was alone, save for the crystal and the bird, each held in a different hand.

“Show me,” Sarah whispered, drawing the crystal up to her gaze. She didn’t know how to finish the demand, unsure of which request Jareth had obliged--if any. The image came forward slowly, as if forming istelf from smoke, but before long she was able to see Toby. He was oddly stretched and distorted--likely due to the curvature of the orb--but it was Toby all the same.He didn’t look happy at all, but Sarah didn’t blame him; he sat on a chair Sarah recognized as bing from Jareth’s supposed-to-be-ruined castle, sitting uncharacteristically still. Jareth probably ordered him not to move a muscle, Sarah thought with a frown. Of course that monster knew her brother’s name. The free will Jareth afforded her seemed not to be extended to Toby.

She tried to feel bad that she’d squandered her clue but couldn’t; at least she knew now that Toby was relatively safe, even if he was unhappy. If there was any other way to find Jareth’s death, she would discover it. Giving up was not and never would be an option for her.

The bird in her hand twitched, and then shuddered, and Sarah was overcome with the sudden fear that it was going through its death throes. Instead, it looked up at her, opening and closing its beak. The bird looked irritated, or as irritated as a little bird possibly could.

It gave itself one more violent shake, and then a tiny woman--no taller than the length of Sarah’s hand--was staring back up at her. She watched as the tiny woman tapped her own ears and then made a fluttering motion with her hands. Sarah took that to mean she wasted raised to ear-height, and so she complied.

“He released me from his binds, and I owe him an unkindness,” the woman said, her voice tiny and wispy. Now that she was closer, Sarah could see that she was unclothed, her skin covered in raw and bleeding patched. Two tiny nubs on her back spoke to the wings that should have been there but weren’t.

A fairy.

He’d torn the wings off a fairy.

Sarah’s skin crawled.

“What did he  _ do _ to you?” she asked, lowering her voice when the fairy winced.

“Took my wings. Took my wild form with him so I cannot fly away. I owe him a grave unkindness,” she repeated. Sarah nodded her head, understanding the sentiment. “I know where the hidden thing is buried.”

_ Buried? _ Sarah raised a single eyebrow. She hadn’t expected him to bury his death, but then again, she doubted he’d done it by hand.

“Will you take me to it?” Sarah asked. The fairy looked up at her, clearly exhausted and in pain. She reached behind her and touched the marks where her wings were once.

“I need to be made whole,” the fairy said with a frown. Then her gaze steeled and she leaned against Sarah’s thumb for support. “Give me water and bread to sup upon, and I will take you to where the hidden thing is buried,” she commanded. “You will have to unearth is yourself.”

Sarah nodded; it seemed like a fair trade, and she like the fairy, owed Jareth a great deal of pain.

“We have a deal. Is there something I may address you as?”

“Good girl, to not ask my name,” she fairy smiled, patting Sarah’s hand. “You may call me Hercinia, if I may call you Sarah. Unlike other monsters in the woods, I will not abuse your name.”

Perhaps it was foolish to trust the fairy, but Sarah found herself wanting to. It was a welcome relief to have some other living creature know of at least some of her troubles.

“Thank you, Hercinia. I will take you home so that you can clean yourself up, and then we’ll go and dig up Jareth’s death. I promise to end him. He will never hurt either one of us again.” She did not wait for a reaction from the fairy. Instead, she picked her way back through the trees, following the same feather out as she’d followed in. Now that she knew the damage the removal of those feathers had caused--and held it in her hand--it was difficult to look at them.

Still, she followed their glowing path out of the forest and back to her empty home. She sat Hercinia on her table and brought her a thimbleful of water and the bread she’d asked for, adding a clean scrap of fabric and a warm, shallow bowl of water so that she could tend to her wounds. While she waited, Sarah tried to keep herself busy so that she would not spend all of her time staring into the crystal. Toby was captured but safe, and she would have to be content with that until she dug up Jareth’s death and won her brother back. With that in mind, she packed a small shovel, her gardening gloves, and a knife, just in case. Another glance at Hercinia and the light pink water in her bowl had her packing extra clean fabric for the fairy, just in case.

When she finished her self-imposed chores, Sarah looked back to Hercinia to see that the fairy had somehow created a gown out of the fabric she hadn’t used as bandaging. Sarah winced in sympathy; the white fabric was a stark contrast to the red and raw patches of skin.

“There is a river some distance from here,” said Hercinia, tightening the tie around her waist. “In the middle of this river is an oak tree, tall and wide but artificially young. There is a chest buried within its roots, and in that chest is the hidden thing we must take back.” 

“Does this river have a name?” Sarah asked, wishing magical creatures weren’t so cryptic. She held her hand out so Hercinia could climb on, and then placed the fairy on her shoulder.

“I do not concern myself with the names mortals give things,” Hercinia sniffed. “But it is large and to the west; I will lead you to it if you can acquire a beast of burden to carry you. You will not be able to walk with the haste I need.”

Karl had a horse he might be persuaded to part with. Still, she didn’t want to put him out or seem ungrateful; she grabbed a few pearls before she left her home.

  
\---  
  


An hour and too much haggling later (Karl still wanted to assemble a mob to hunt Jareth down, a thought that made Sarah shudder) Sarah set out on her new horse. Karl had employed his sense of irony and named the beast Kindness. Kindness wanted to do what Kindness wanted to do, and the mare showed no desire to rae anywhere in the growing dark. It took Hercinia crawling up to the horse’s ear to whisper something to get Kindness to go any faster than a plodding walk.

Hercinia curled up on Sarah’s shoulder, wrapping herself in Sarah’s hair so she would not fall, and fell asleep. Sarah herself was too nervous to even think of sleep. Not only was she not accustomed to horses--a lesser concern in the scheme of things--but she was looking at the prospect of finally,  _ finally _ , being rid of Jareth. For good. The thought left her giddy and afraid at the same time; she knew he wouldn’t go down without a fight, or at least a few underhanded tricks. She thought herself prepared for at least some of them, but it was the tricks he might have learned in the intervening years that worried her.

“West,” Hercinia mumbled, still half asleep, and Sarah corrected Kindness’s path. The sun had mostly set, but there was a sliver of orange glow lingering on the horizon for her to follow. At some point, perhaps sooner than she would wish, she knew she would have to stop and give both herself and Kindness a break. But as long as there was still light, Sarah wanted to keep moving. Sleep wouldn’t come to her until she was thoroughly exhausted, anyway.

It was only when she found herself nodding off in Kindness’s saddle that she realized she actually was that tired, and probably had been for some time. Sarah lead Kindness a safe distance away from the road and set up the most pathetic camp she’d ever seen. A fire was not possible--soldiers fleeing the front tended to roam at night, or so went the gossip back home.

“Sleep, human Sarah,” Hercinia directed. If Sarah found the idea of a fairy lookout ridiculous, she did not say; she was already asleep under her saddle blanket.

**Author's Note:**

> For spoiler reasons, I chose not to use archive warnings. I will, however, provide warnings for individual chapters.


End file.
